Tired of Yahoo Groups? Thinking of moving to Mail-list.com or another private listserv? You’ll want to make the transition as seamless as possible. And you’ll probably want to bring some of your hard-won data with you, like a members list and an archive of emails. I’m afraid I have both just OK and annoying news for you on that front. But in this article, I’ll do my best to help you move a Yahoo Group to a new listserv.

Maybe you want to move to a different email provider. Maybe you need to export an archive for a new listserv. Either way, the best plan is to export your files from Gmail and Yahoo as a MBOX, an old Unix file type that’s still used for email archives across both PC and Mac. Here’s how to export a MBOX file from both these common email providers.
Export a MBOX file from Gmail (Inbox) Gmail is the easiest of the two to export from.

So a group mailing list is basically just a bunch of people who email each other with the reply all button, right? Sure, that might work. It’s a bit haphazard and lots of messages might get lost in the shuffle. But it’s free and handy and how else would your aunt send you those giant lists of cute cat photos? (She really should be writing for Buzzfeed.) But maybe to cut down on the headaches you should consider what listserv management do for you.

The problems with Yahoo groups just keep getting worse. Basically, this platform for hosting group discussions grows more restrictive and error prone as time goes on. And, it’s also, you know, Yahoo. A site which I haven’t look at, except for my spam email box, for more than half a decade. So should you start a group mailing list on Yahoo groups? Nope, nope, nope.
But don’t take my word for it!

Last week, I talked about whether you can get away with charging money for your listserv. And how to figure out how much to charge. But why should you make that jump from free to paid? Are there really any benefits? Today I’m going to give you some good reasons to charge fees for your listserv. (Look here for how to figure out how much money you should charge people to use your listserv.

I think everyone would agree that a local community is a good thing. Being part of a local community means helpful neighbors, farmers’ markets, events for the kids, and people that have your back when things are bad. Local communities are as old as history. Nowadays, though, local communities have a new opportunity–they can easily move onto the internet. But should they? Are there reasons to start (or join) an online local community?

So you want to make an online community (or you’ve already made a community) and you’re wondering how to get those first few people to join. (Here’s some tips for starting a group mailing list if you haven’t made one yet.) There’s nothing sadder than an empty echoing community, really. Here then are some simple, free ideas for how to promote your online community.
Make a Community You Already Know is Needed Before you start an online community (What?

Antman234 is exchanging heated words with KickThem45 on your community. They’re arguing over who is better, Batman or Superman. Or maybe it’s Wonderwoman or the Green Lantern. It’s hard to tell now. It’s not a civil argument. Certain words are being used. Things are being implied about each others’ respective mothers. Assumptions are being made. The problem is not the argument. The problem is that this is not a conversation built on kindness.

Being a good, honest, hardworking person who runs a listserv community but only has so many hours in a day, you may have thought to yourself: Can I make money running a listserv community? Well, that’s an interesting question. People do charge fees for access to their listserv. Obviously, most associations that include a listserv charge fees for all their services. But one of the people who runs just a listserv and uses our service charges about $25/year.

What do community managers do, exactly?
Short Answer: No one seems to know…exactly.
Medium Answer: Lots of things. Pretty much anything that has to do with managing a community. But probably not what a social media manager does, maybe. Unless they do.
**Long Answer: **The community manager wears many hats. Which is already confusing. Even more confusing is that a community manager will wear different selections of hats depending on the community they’re managing and why they manage it.